Friday, September 26, 2014

The International Olympic
Committee today announced that future Olympics host cities must sign a
contract with an added clause vowing to protect LGBT participants and
attendees from discrimination. Via press release from All Out:

“This is a significant step in
ensuring the protection of both citizens and athletes around the world
and sends a clear message to future host cities that human rights
violations, including those against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender people, will not be tolerated,” said Andre Banks, co-founder
and executive director of All Out, the global movement for love and
equality. “This is a particularly important moment for the world’s
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens who face discrimination
and persecution not only in Russia but in countries all over the world.
We will continue working to make sure this change is powerfully enforced
- these new rules must prevent a replay of Sochi.”According to IOC Sports
Director, Christopher Dubi, the new clause will include “the prohibition
of any form of discrimination, using the wording of Fundamental
Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter." This clause will ensure that
future host cities must abide by international human rights standards in
order to host the games, including the protection of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender citizens and athletes. “By adopting a
non-discrimination clause into its host city contracts, the IOC is
showcasing its own realization that we must protect the rights of every
athlete to live free and openly,” said Hudson Taylor, Executive Director
of Athlete Ally. “The Principle 6 campaign sought to shed light on the
responsibility of host countries to uphold the olympic values, and this
action validates all of the hard work by organizations and individuals
across the world who’ve engaged in the fight for LGBT equality.”

RELATED: The 2016 Summer Games will be held in Rio De Janeiro,
where robust LGBT protections already exist. The 2018 Winter Games will
be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where homosexuality is legal, but
anti-discrimination laws do not exist.

"Some Attorneys General wait for history, others make history happen.
Attorney General Holder made history for the LGBT community. He was our
Robert F. Kennedy, lightening the burden of every American who faces
legal discrimination and social oppression. We owe him a profound debt
of gratitude for his legacy of advocacy and service. President Obama
faces a historic opportunity in light of Attorney General Holder's
departure. The President has expressed a commitment to appointing a
cabinet that reflects the full diversity of the American people, and
there are many richly-qualified candidates available to serve as the
first openly-LGBT cabinet secretary. It would be a natural extension of
this administration's enduring commitment to equality to send a message
of visibility and inclusion by nominating such a candidate to serve in
this historic role." - Human Rights Campaign Chad Griffin, via email.

The Daily Beast today published a lengthy accounting of the The Gathering, a secretive meeting of anti-gay right wing activists that starts in Orlando today. An excerpt:

The Gathering is an annual event at
which many of the wealthiest conservative to hard-right evangelical
philanthropists in America—representatives of the families DeVos, Coors,
Prince, Green, Maclellan, Ahmanson, Friess, plus top leaders of the
National Christian Foundation—meet with evangelical innovators with
fresh ideas on how to evangelize the globe. The Gathering promotes
“family values” agenda: opposition to gay rights and reproductive
rights, for example, and also a global vision that involves the eventual
eradication of all competing belief systems that might compete with The
Gathering’s hard-right version of Christianity. Last year, for example,
The Gathering 2013 brought together key funders, litigants, and
plaintiffs of the Hobby Lobby case, including three generations of the Green family. The
evangelical right financial dynasties and foundations that meet each
year at The Gathering dispense upwards of $1 billion a year in grants.
But even that is overshadowed by the bigger sums that The Family and
The Gathering have managed to route from the federal and state
government to fund their movement via the Faith-Based Initiative
program, USAID, PEPFAR and other multibillion-dollar programs.

Many of the anti-gay hate groups involved will be familiar to you. Definitely hit that link.

"We aren't just defending marriage - whether we call it natural marriage
or traditional marriage or Biblical marriage - because it's the way
we've always done things. We have a much more firm foundation than
tradition. We affirm marriage in the way that God himself intended it.
The church is not a Christian congress or Supreme Court. The laws of God
cannot be overruled or deemed unconstitutional. Of course, we ALL break
those laws and being a homosexual doesn't make a man a sinner any more
or less than being a gossip. Both crimes deserve the death penalty, and
only the one who relies on the righteousness of Christ can escape it." -
Chris Johnson, writing for the American Decency Association, which notes on its Facebook page that it is the former Michigan chapter for the American Family Association.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: The American Decency Association declares
that while they totally hate that homosexual Michael Sam, they are not
the group by the same name that called for protesting Dallas Cowboys
games. The American Decency Association calls for a boycott of Target
and for Christians to mail their destroyed charge cards to company
headquarters. The American Decency Association says the DOMA ruling was
as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Three of the nation's top pro-family
groups have announced an unprecedented campaign against three top
Republican candidates for federal office because the candidates are
supporters of same-sex 'marriage' and abortion. The National
Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council Action and
CitizenLink announced they will urge voters not to support Republican
House candidates Carl DeMaio (CA-52) and Richard Tisei (MA-6), and will
urge Oregon voters not to support US Senate candidate Monica Wehby. "The
Republican Party platform is a 'statement of who we are and what we
believe.' Thus, the platform supports the truth of marriage as the union
of husband and wife, and recognizes the sanctity and dignity of human
life. This is what Republicans believe," said Brian S. Brown, president
of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). "It is extremely
disappointing to see Republican leaders in Washington help push the
election of candidates who reject the party's principled positions on
these and other core issues. We cannot sit by when people calling
themselves Republicans seek high office while espousing positions that
are antithetical to the overwhelming majority of Republicans."

“Once
we become independent, we may or may not end up helping to sustain our
parents, but we need to observe who in us is doing this. Where does our
sense of responsibility come from: guilt or love? Do we want to help
because our heart is open, or because we feel guilty? Many people help
their parents out of a sense of obligation, but they will later expect
'compensation,' even charging 'interest' and 'inflation adjustments.'
Rather than being monetary, this compensation comes in the form of
emotional pressure. One actually ends up subtly humiliating one’s
parents, taking revenge for having been hurt in the past.”